


Double-bluff

by kangeiko



Category: Sunshine (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-27
Updated: 2008-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:11:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Capa/Mace and all the meanings of 'Icarus'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double-bluff

Searle likely knows. Capa suspects that it is his _job_ to know, despite the protests to the contrary. He knows the double-bluff variant, and does not believe it: it is too complex a system to remain remotely viable otherwise. Someone must know who the Icarus is, or else there _is_ no Icarus. There can't be.

Capa would be the first to admit his lacklustre understanding of psychology. He does not understand why Corazon spends so much time in the garden, for instance. He knows that she misses Earth, as he does, and she misses green things, as he does, but why not ask for more time in the imaging chamber? Why not have entire forests, and birds overhead, and children playing?

Corazon spends no time in the imaging chamber. Her fingers are brown with earth, crescents beneath her fingernails etched into her. Capa thinks that a thousand washes of those hands would likely remove the skin, but keep those black-brown crescents, as if Corazon had the Earth in her soul.

He thinks that if anyone is the Icarus, it's probably Corazon. Who could love living things so much and not be - it, he, she, whatever it is the Icarus is supposed to be. Except -

(except -)

We've already established that Capa has a very limited understanding of psychology. At least - the parts not related to mathematics. Capa is very good at mathematics, and the tiny, endlessly complicated algorithms that spiral out from a given premise are no different from the payload, or the trajectory, or any of the other millions of variables that multiply when he's not looking.

Here are the things he knows:

He knows that the Icarus - whoever he or she is - might not exist. The psychs call it - hesheit - an archetype, a representation of a _sort_ of person. This, it was discovered in the dry run of the mission (how do we keep a group of people in a locked box for months on end and keep them from killing each other?), Does Not Work, world without end. Icarus is the Dreamer, the Fantasist, the Fanatic - depending on whom you talk to, of course - and there is no such 'implied archetype' in a group of eight people. There is, in the end, simply a group of eight people, all looking at each other slightly suspiciously.

Capa knows that there's nothing _wrong_ with being Icarus. There's nothing wrong with being the nerdy science one, either - especially on a science mission - and nothing wrong with being the heroic one, or the thoughtful people-person, or the neurotic one, or any of a million other labels and categories used to slot people together into the perfect team. Management gurus have been doing it for close to a century, now, and they have it down to a fine art. There is nothing wrong, Capa knows, with being the obsessive problem-solver. Every team needs one. There is nothing wrong with being the heroic leader. Every team needs a leader. There's nothing wrong with being the Icarus.

There is nothing wrong with being -

(- is nothing wrong -)

Every team has -

( every -)

Every team does _not_ need an Icarus. A team of lawyers does not need one. A rowing crew does not need one. A polar expedition does not need one. An Icarus is the one thing you avoid in those situations; the type of personality you try to suppress. Who would ask for fanaticism, when they want dedication?

(And do you really want people killing themselves over this, it's just a legal brief, my _God_ -)

Capa knows that there is nothing wrong with being an Icarus. He also knows that the only team that would have any use for it - hesheit - is not coming back.

*

This team combination is not what the psychs expected, Capa thinks. The mission designers screened everyone pretty severely in the run-up to the mission, petrified that it hadn't been mechanical failure that downed the Icarus I. (Capa wonders if they had an Icarus aboard that first run, too; if that was what brought it down.

He wonders if they didn't. If that makes it worse.)

'Cabin fever' some textbooks called it, drawing on the old metaphor of a leaky box stuck on the endless sea. Of course, reality is nothing like that. There's no place you can run to for a burst of fresh air. There's no lapping of the water; no spray of sea. There is just the sun on your face, burning. Unrelenting.

(Whenever Capa is on the observation deck, he wears the heaviest shades available; has the filter set at the highest setting. He goes to the observation deck for the dark, and the stars, and wonders if he is missing the point.

But, then - what kind of crew would want to look into _that_?)

Really, Capa thinks, the sea metaphor is defunct. They would have been better off looking in the desert. Men do crazy things in the desert - and isn't that where the damned psychs' favourite archetype comes from, anyway? - or would, if they lived long enough. With only the sun to see, who's to know?

(Why name their mission after this? Icarus, the Fantasist, Icarus, the Zealot, the Obsessive, the Fanatic… it's a bad omen. Who would name a ship after the Titanic?)

The psychs, Capa knows, didn't precisely screen out homosexuals - the very idea! How vulgar, how _last century_ \- as _any_ sexuals. This wasn't about some odd little Freudian notion of sexuality, but a cold, hard, mathematical choice: those with an ascetic lifestyle would suffer the deprivation less. They picked those who would obsess over the mission, over the _science_, at the expense of all else. Not for them the long, cosy nights tucked up in a communal bunk, whiling away the hours; no. Everyone to their station, everyone doing their duty, and the mission attending to itself.

(- the mission -)

It is a balanced, rational group obsession, the psychs insist, and there is no need for any one member to give himself over so completely. This mission, they say, has no need for an Icarus.

(That's utter bullshit.)

"I've been thinking," Mace said, standing at the hatch to Capa's bunk. His hair was grown too long and he had not shaved for a while. "We should probably fuck. You know. For our sanity."

(Of course, the psychs did the same thing with the Icarus I crew selection.)

Capa put down his stylus. "Fuck?" He repeated.

"Yeah." Mace shifted from foot to foot. His movements were slow; deliberate. "For sanity."

"Um." Capa stood and smiled. "I think you'll find that's 'for science'."

"Whatever," Mace said, laughing, and kissed him. It was an odd kiss; off centre. It started at the corner Capa's jaw and worked its way upwards, tentatively seeking his mouth.

"For sanity, then," Capa murmured. He kissed back.

*

If you add one hidden variable to any equation - any equation at all - you can change the outcome. It is inevitable.

For instance:

Mace and Capa in Capa's bunk, Mace's hands on Capa's shoulders, and soft thrum of the engine beneath them. This is life, Capa thinks. It will be all right. There is no Icarus on board; I was stupid to obsess over it. It's a _team_ obsession; there no need for an Icarus; only a kamikaze would need _that_. And this? (And here is where Mace would smile, and twist his hips, and Capa would stop thinking.) This is _life_.

*

Or:

Four hours later, still sweaty and dishevelled, Capa will cost Mace the opportunity to say goodbye to his family. _It's fine,_ Mace will later say, in lieu of apology. His eyes will be fever-bright, and determined, and the look in them hideously familiar. _I'll see them later,_ he'll say. _When we go home._

And he will be lying.

*

fin


End file.
